Rapper Nas attacks Fox News for "racist propaganda"

Photo from the ColorOfChange.org

Fox News has been slammed as a "racist propaganda machine" by rapper Nas, who's written an entire song about the channel. He yesterday tried to deliver 620,000 signatures to Fox owners News Corp from webusers who believe the network to be anti-black and unfair to Obama. But the petition was refused.

A string of offensive comments and "slips of the tongue" have landed Fox in trouble since the US presidential campaign kicked off. Last month they called Obama's wife a "baby-mama", and before that had labelled the couple's affectionate fist bump as a "terrorist fist jab". Obama was once "accidentally" called Osama and is regularly called by his full name - Barack Hussein Obama".

Although the Rupert Murdoch owned channel apologised for many of these occasions, an online petition against its "racist and hate-filled smears" managed to attract 620,137 signatures. Organised by activist groups MoveOn.org and ColorofChange.org, Nas went to the New York headquarters on Wednesday to deliver the 20 crates of signed papers, but was refused. He made a speech in front of the building saying that the network "poisons the country with racist propaganda and tries to call it news." They responded that "Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech including Nas who has an album to promote".

The first song on the album is about Fox. "Watch what you watchin', Fox keeps feeding us toxins ... I pledge allegiance to the fair and balanced truth, not the biased truth, not the liar's truth," he says.

"I challenge you to show me a single racist attack in Fox News coverage"

Nas appeared on Comedy Central's faux talking head show The Colbert Report, where he was "grilled" by the show's satirical host for thinking that Fox could possibly be racist. Seeing as they weren't accepted by Fox, Nas is sitting on the boxes of signatures that were collected. The video of the interview is on The Raw Story website.

"Fox has nothing against the good kind black people"

The website 23/6 posted this parody of Fox's response to the attacks. Posted 25 July 08.

"Fox attacks: Black America"

Fox Attacks is a website dedicated to criticising Fox News for its "distorted" coverage. The video was produced by Brave New Films, an organisation that uses citizen produced media to "challenge corporate media".

"We need Fox to balance out all the other pro-Obama media"

Jim Wilkinson is a Fox News fan and Republican supporter from Texas.

I spend a lot of time watching Fox News, and I don't think it's biased at all. Everybody talked about the turban thing. But he was wearing a turban! He's the one who put himself in those positions that Fox talks about. If he didn't want people to see him wearing a turban, he shouldn't have done it.

Also, Fox is the only network that treats both candidates equally. It's other media like CNN who are biased, spending all their time talking about Obama. The liberals in this country are always trying to quieten the conservative side. But they won't succeed. We need Fox to balance out all the other pro-Obama media."

"Fox is not a news network"

When Nas was refused delivery of the 620,000 signatures, he made this speech outside their New York HQ. Posted by "bestofbo" on 23 July 08.